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DEAF AND DUMB, EDUCATION OF THE. 



DEAF AND DUMB, EDUCATION OF THE. 



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('Manuel d'Enseignement Pratique des Sourds-Muets '), the pictorial 

 art is employed to exemplify substantives, their gender and number, 

 adjectives, the cardinal numbers, fractional numbers, verbs neuter and 

 active, personal pronouns, prepositions, articles, and degrees of com- 

 parison ; many other portions of language may be explained by 

 diagrams. Drawing is thus of essential service, and the pupils often 

 have recourse to the advantages it offers for any communications which 

 they think will be better comprehended through its medium than 

 others. This art is therefore encouraged, and in nearly all institutions 

 direct instruction is given to the pupils from an early period of their 

 education. 



The auxiliaries we have now indicated are used for the conveyance 

 of all kinds of knowledge ; in some branches of study one may have a 

 preference to. others, from its being better adapted to their elucidation. 

 Thus geography will always be taught from maps, geology from sec- 

 tions, geometry from diagrams ; pictures will be used to describe 

 historical events ; and signs will be in requisition for the illustration 

 of the arts and trades of men, as well as for showing the manners and 

 customs of distant nations. Collections of metals, minerals, vegetables, 

 animals, animal substances, vegetable substances, are of the highest 

 value, and furnish direct evidence of properties and changes which 

 cannot be described. It will even be necessary occasionally to call in 

 the assistance of the workshop and its implements, the laboratory and 

 its apparatus, in order to perform experiments, and to exhibit processes 

 before their eyes ; and while the excitement prevails, to make use of 

 the opportunity to communicate not only knowledge, but the primary 

 aim of all instructors of the deaf and dumb language. Having the 

 latter, the attractive form in which knowledge is presented will raise 

 in them a desire to possess this also, and the object of the teacher is 

 fully accomplished. 



It has been already mentioned that Heinicke was the great promoter 

 in Germany of the system of vocal articulation and reading on the lips 

 still retained in the German schools, and also adhered to in the London 

 asylum, but only exceptionally followed in the other schools of the 

 United Kingdom. In the year 1844, in consequence of gome state- 

 ments put forth by the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of 

 Education, the directors of the New York Institution felt themselves 

 called upon thoroughly to investigate the results of the vocal system 

 pursued in Germany, as compared with the modes of instruction 

 adopted in the New York and other American institutions, which are 

 generally those of the provincial schools of this country. It had been 

 asserted officially, that the institutions for the deaf and dumb in 

 Prussia, Saxony, and Holland were decidedly superior to those of 

 America ; that the German instructors possessed the art of teaching 

 their deaf and dumb pupils to speak substantially in all cases as other 

 men speak, and thus restoring them to society. And these assertions 

 were put forth with that apparent novelty which implied that the 

 American teachers of the deaf and dumb were wrapped up in com- 

 fortable ignorance of a controversy at all times interesting, but which 

 at the time had been all but unanimously decided hi England and 

 America, as well as in most of the other countries where the education 

 of the deaf and dumb had made any progress. 



The New York board of directors, therefore, availed themselves of a 

 visit to Germany of the Rev. George E. Day, to set this vexed question 

 at rest. No man could have been better qualified for such a mission. 

 He had been for some years a teacher hi the New York Institution, 

 and he was familiar with both the theory and the practice of deaf-mute 

 instruction. He possessed a competent knowledge of the French and 

 German languages ; and his object in going into Germany was the 

 prosecution of literary and theological studies. He had also powers of 

 discrimination and philosophical habits, which would render his exami- 

 nation of the subject thorough and his conclusions accurate. 



Mr. Day received from Mr. Peet, the principal of the institution, a 

 letter of instructions, hi which he was appointed the delegate of the 

 board to the schools for the deaf and dumb in Europe, while his 

 attention wa< to be specifically directed to those in the German states. 

 He is reminded that the system of instruction adopted in America is 

 that technically known as the French system of De 1'Epce and Sicard, 

 as distinguished from that of Heinicke and Braidwood ; that its chief 

 characteristic is the employment of an expanded and improved lan- 

 guage of gestures as the principal meant, while the acquisition of 

 written language is the end of instruction ; that the system of Heinicke 

 is that which differs from it most obviously : and he is directed to 

 state in describing the systems of different institutions, what are the 

 entlt proposed, the method in which the difficulties of language are pre- 

 sented, the procettei employed, and the instruments of communication 

 between teachers and pupils. As to the specific object of his mission, 

 Mr. Day was to ascertain in what schools for the deaf and dumb in 

 Europe articulation was taught, either as a general acquisition or 

 restricted to a class ; if taught in a class, whether to those partially 

 deaf, or to those who had learned to speak before losing their hearing ; 

 the extent to which pantomime is used in articulating schools; 

 whether lessons given by the teacher who employs gesticulation would 

 be equally intelligible without it, the words being merely read on the 

 liys ; if the cll<i<pii;il intercourse of pupils of articulating schools in 

 their hours of recreation is more frequently carried on by gestures or 

 by the voice and reading on the lips ; if the deaf and dumb seem to 

 take pleasure in exercising the faculty of speech ; if complete success 



was attained in all cases in any institution ; the proportion of success 

 and of failure, distinguishing such proportion in those who had been 

 deaf from birth ; if the articulation of deaf-mutes who had left school 

 some years was easy and agreeable to strangers, or whether they had 

 discontinued the practice of speaking ; to what extent reading on the 

 lips is practicable, and the assistance these acquisitions give to pupils 

 iu their future studies ; the effect of articulation on the health and 

 physical development of deaf and dumb children ; and finally, Mr. Day 

 was instructed to inquire in what language articulation and reading on 

 the lips have been found most ready for the deaf and dumb, and in 

 what the most difficult ; whether such difficulties arise from the num- 

 ber of silent letters, the various sounds given to the same letter, irregu- 

 larities of orthography, capaciousness of accent, &c. &c., and how the 

 English language will compare in these respects with the German, 

 French, and other European languages. 



The above is a mere skeleton of Mr. Peet's letter. In the condensa- 

 tion which we propose to give of Mr. Day's able and copious report, 

 we must be proportionately brief, confining ourselves almost exclusively 

 to the subject of articulation and reading on the lips. 



Mr. Day arrived in England, according to his own statement, at the 

 time of the Midsummer vacation. He visited several of the English 

 schools, but does not mention which of them, and then passed over to 

 Paris, as a centre of information respecting the European schools. We 

 gather from the following passage that he visited the London Asylum : 

 " Even in the London Institution, where articulation is professedly 

 taught, the principal assured me that the object in view is by no 

 means to teach all the scholars to speak, but only to understand by 

 the motion of the lips what is said by others. According to a very 

 intelligent gentleman who had been ten years connected with that 

 institution, not one-fourth can be taught to speak. That such should 

 have been the history of articulation as a branch of instruction in 

 Great Britain, will not appear singular to those to whom the great and 

 peculiar obstacles to be encountered in teaching the pronunciation of 

 our language are familiar." 



Instruction in articulation had been recently introduced in the 

 school at Paris to a limited extent, namely, to those who retained 

 some degree of hearing, who had learned to talk previous to their deaf- 

 ness, or who were otherwise promising candidates. " Of the 115 male 

 pupils, a class of 29 receive instruction in articulation an hour a day. 

 These are divided into two sections, the elder of which have been 

 under instruction not far from a year. The younger division of 1 5 

 had so far failed to encourage expectation of their future progress, that 

 the attempt with eight of them was about to be abandoned." Their 

 instructor remarked, that all that could be then said was, that the 

 most promising might be able at least to make themselves understood ; 

 that this kind of instruction was peculiarly laborious ; that the French 

 as well as the English language, 011 account of its irregular orthography 

 in respect to pronunciation, interposed great obstacles in the way of 

 success. In a few other schools in France, those of Bordeaux, 

 Toulouse, and Nancy, instruction in articulation is given to those 

 who it is supposed can profit from it. 



Mr. Day found several German theories of instruction, in all of 

 which prominence was given to articulation as a principal auxiliary. 

 " First is the Saxon school, the oldest in Germany, the one whose prin- 

 ciples and processes agree most nearly with those of Heinicke. Of 

 this class of instructors, now very small, Mr. Reich, of Leipzig, may be 

 considered as standing at the head. Next in age comes what may be 

 called the Wurtemburi/ school, of which the Rev. Mr. Jager, for many 

 years principal of the Royal Institution at Gmiind, may be regarded as 

 the founder. The teachers, who fully embrace his views, are princi- 

 pally to be found in Southern Germany. Thirdly must be reckoned 

 what may be termed the New Prussian school, from the recognised 

 expounder of its principles, Mr. Moritz Hill, the intelligent instructor 

 in the Teachers' Seminary at Weissenfels, in the Prussian province of 

 Saxony. A number of young men embrace his views with ardour, and 

 are carrying them out with zeal. 



In respect to the main object to be secured by the education of the 

 deaf and dumb, the larger portion of the German instructors perfectly 

 agree. Some, indeed, attach so much importance to the teaching of 

 articulation, as to leave the impression that they recognise no higher 

 aim ; but those who take a wider view, regard a preparation for inter- 

 course with society as only a part of the object, and justly remark, 

 with the excellent Mr. Jager, that the main end of the instruction of 

 the deaf and dumb is to prepare them for this world and the next, for 

 life and for death. The means are instruction in the ordinary branches 

 taught in the common schools of the country, under such modifications 

 as are considered most suitable for persons in their condition. The 

 instruments are, present objects, models, pictures, pantomimic signs, 

 articulation, reading on the lips, and writing. In respect, however, to 

 the relation which these instruments bear to each other, the different 

 teachers widely differ. " Artificial and arbitrary signs, as also the 

 finger-alphabet, the German teachers agree in theory in rejecting, on 

 the double ground that they are not understood among those with 

 whom the deaf-mute is to associate in after-life, and that they hinder 

 the progress of the pupil. There are now only two or three schools in 

 Germany, so far as I know, in which the manual alphabet is at present 

 employed. These justify its use on the ground that words given to 

 the deaf-mute for the first time orally, are not certain to be understood. 



